This week's (and last week's) recipe - Dream Bars and Coconut Custard Pie

Two week's worth of recipe review! Both recipes came from the King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion Cookbook (a huge title for a huge book).

The Dream Bars (chosen by Chris) were a bit of a flop. Super duper extremely sweet. Which should have come as no surprise as there is a pound of dark brown sugar in the filling. Plus more dark brown sugar in the crust. Basically I found them one dimensional - all I could taste was the molasses flavor of the sugar. Chris thought they were good enough to freeze as itty-bitty snacks (I'd have chucked them). Suggestions to improve the recipe if I'm ever insane enough to try it again? Light brown sugar in the filling; add chocolate chips, double the coconut, and toast the pecans.

Now the Coconut Custard Pie from the same cookbook? Stellar. Not only was the pie simple to make, I even learned a new trick for keeping the crust from getting soggy. Blind bake the crust for 10 minutes, remove from oven and brush bottom and sides with beaten egg yolk, bake for 5 more minutes before pouring in custard filling. I'm going to use this trick for my quiches too. Worked great! I did make one change to the recipe (bad Christin, bad) - I doubled the amount of coconut. But only because I didn't have any coconut flavoring (so very bad). Actually, I think I liked it better this way. Nice textural impact from the extra coconut yet not overpowering in the flavor department. Plus I so often find those flavorings "fake" tasting.

Next week's recipes will be a triple play. We're doing a dinner party and I'm trying three new recipes from two different cookbooks. Brave? Nah - the whole family loves to cook. If they don't work, we'll easily punt and make something else.